{"id":5246,"date":"2011-03-10T16:27:17","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T16:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/?p=5246"},"modified":"2019-08-01T11:57:13","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T11:57:13","slug":"im-a-little-bit-country-nick-langley-on-nashville-numbering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/im-a-little-bit-country-nick-langley-on-nashville-numbering\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m a little bit country – Nick Langley on Nashville Numbering"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nashville\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen posts on various websites, including this venerable one, discussing innumerable cunning ways of writing charts. Why, I ask? What\u2019s wrong with the existing systems? Music notation has been painstakingly refined over centuries and does the job perfectly well. People have been recording music since long before Edison invented the phonograph, Bill Lear and his band of cronies, the 8-track cartridge and Sony, the LaserDisc – precursor to the Compact Disc. Notation contains all you need to know to reproduce a perfectly good facsimile of the original. It does, however, have one huge<\/em> flaw – it\u2019s useless if you don\u2019t speak the language! And it\u2019s not a language readily learnt as one ages. \u201cMake your mind up, Langley!\u201d, I hear you cry. Well, I have to be honest, I\u2019m not blessed with a sight reader\u2019s eye. Nor brain for that matter. I can survive perfectly well with a Lead Sheet but I\u2019d be lying if I said I was following the dots. My sight reading is like an ocular version of a drunk wending his weary way home from the pub after a lengthy lock-in: one stumble forwards, two backwards, the occasional long pause to focus and repeated mutterings about being a test pilot for Airfix – neither pretty nor particularly intelligible. It does little to glorify the big fella either!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not generally given to quoting, not that I\u2019m averse to peppering everyday conversation with witty observations made by others, but rather that I have and absolutely appalling<\/em> memory, however, seeing as how it\u2019s you I\u2019ll make an exception. It\u2019s important to understand that I offer this in a spirit of fellowship and friendship amongst we spirited worship musicians:<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>It’s frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.\u201d<\/strong> Unknown
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Let me share something wonderful with you (don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s not a rude joke). A lot of chart systems that shun traditional notation that I\u2019ve seen mentioned on the World Wide Wossmichops, lack a basic, but extremely necessary, reference point – how long to play each chord (or note) for! Guitar Chord sheets are a perfect example: unless you know the melody, they\u2019re patently useless. And most \u201chomemade\u201d systems appear weakened by the same genetic flaw. Except one! Let me introduce you to the Nashville Number System. I know it\u2019s been mentioned on this website before (in fact, I\u2019ve a vague recollection of me mentioning it somewhere here). It\u2019ll be a fleeting introduction so don\u2019t thank me yet, but I urge all non-sight readers to give it a sniff and see what you think. Invented, if that\u2019s the right word, by Neal Matthews of Jordanaires fame in the 1950s. The system had existed in a simpler form in Nashville for some years previously, but was expanded upon by Matthews to help his vocal group cope with up to 4 studio sessions a day and subsequently further developed by country musician Charlie McCoy (Shame on you! His list of session credits reads like a 50 year Who\u2019s Who of music: Elvis Presley, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, even Cliff Richard! I stopped counting when I got to 50 different artists on who\u2019s albums he\u2019s played. The instruments played by him on these sessions include, harmonica, bass, guitar, trumpet, saxophone, drums, organ, and that\u2019s not exhaustive!)<\/p>\n

The Nashville Number System is based around numbers, perhaps not surprisingly given it\u2019s name, and is pretty much the only form of charting used in Nashville, arguably home to the greatest contemporary musicians in the world. Let me put it this way, if you don\u2019t read \u201cnumbers\u201d you wouldn\u2019t get a jot of studio work there and probably very little live work.<\/p>\n

Let me explain. I don\u2019t wish to offend nor to patronise in anyway so please excuse me. I\u2019m led to believe that the boy Chamberlain covers NNS in his Intermediate DVDs<\/a>, but I\u2019ll assume no prior knowledge for the purposes of this post.<\/p>\n

Every degree (note) of a scale has a name: Tonic, Supertonic, Mediant, Subdominant, Dominant, Submediant, Leading Note*, Octave. Each is also assigned a number: traditionally using Roman numerals – I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII – but more commonly, and particularly in America, Arabic numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. Let us take a particularly familiar chord sequence to we worship musicians:<\/p>\n

In the key of A, a single measure each of A, E, F#m7<\/sup>, D. In my world this would be written as 1, 5, 6-, 4, or rather:<\/p>\n

1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 6-7<\/sup> 4<\/p>\n

A single number equals 1 bar. Split bars are represented by an underline, thus 4\u00a0 5<\/span>. This example means, therefore, if the key is A in 4\/4 time, two beats of D and two beats of E. Unevenly split bars are written with hash marks above the number to determine the number of beats each chord gets:<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2019\u2019 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ><\/h2>\n

1\u00a0 2-<\/span> three beats of A and one of Bm. Anticipated or pushed notes: 5\u00a0 6-<\/span>7<\/sup> meaning the F#m7<\/sup> comes on the \u201c2 and\u201d beat, or to put it another way, 3 quavers of E and 5 quavers of the F#m7<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more, but this isn\u2019t the place for too much detail. It\u2019s a fantastic shorthand and quick and easy to communicate to one another. The authoritative book on the subject has been written by a chap called Chas Williams. More details on him, his book and the system can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written a second part on this subject which discusses the merits (there are no downsides that I can think of!) and the system in further details which we’ll post next week..<\/p>\n

Cheers<\/p>\n

Nick<\/p>\n

Other posts you might like:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Playing by ear part 1<\/a><\/p>\n

Playing by ear part 2 \u2013 Nashville Numbering explained<\/a><\/p>\n

The failsafe method of working out which chords fit in a key<\/a><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve seen posts on various websites, including this venerable one, discussing innumerable cunning ways of writing charts. Why, I ask? What\u2019s wrong with the existing systems? Music notation has been painstakingly refined over centuries and does the job perfectly well. People have been recording music since long before Edison invented the phonograph, Bill Lear and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5303,"featured_media":22366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[131,7,27,630,1510],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nI'm a little bit country - Nick Langley on Nashville Numbering | Musicademy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, nofollow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/im-a-little-bit-country-nick-langley-on-nashville-numbering\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I'm a little bit country - Nick Langley on Nashville Numbering | Musicademy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve seen posts on various websites, including this venerable one, discussing innumerable cunning ways of writing charts. 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